Bloodaxe

These guys might be worth a bell: [url="http://www.hammondhire.com/service.htm"]http://www.hammondhire.com/service.htm[/url]

[quote name='Clarky' post='987033' date='Oct 13 2010, 03:22 PM']Happy Jack has just kindly offered to lend me my old Precision fretless for Sunday so I am sorted - at least on the bass front! I shall not be practising on a bass until probably Saturday so that the immediate swelling can go down. Well this is not how I expected Wenesday to pan out! Unfortunately I have to take a client to Guns n Roses tonight at the O2 and they are standing tickets too. Expect me right at the back, away from any mosh pit ...[/quote] I feel for you mate, reminds me of the time I stuck a stanley knife into my middle finger - three stitches & a month off. Not nice at all. If Saturday/Sunday prove to be too much even with the fretless, I'm more than happy to offer my services as a dep. Fretless only for me though (but I'd play ball & stick some foam under the bridge and back the treble off). Pete.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' post='969325' date='Sep 27 2010, 12:13 PM']SB1000 in case. Looks very nice. If I win it for my ridiculous lowball bid, you can bet I'll travel to where-ever it is in Lincolnshire to pick it up biggrin.gif [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=140459010053"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=140459010053[/url][/quote] Topped out at a quite reasonable £430.

[quote name='bubinga5' post='986100' date='Oct 12 2010, 07:26 PM']maybe it a two way thing...i thought thats what they are there for..and thats what you pay them for..im sure Roger Sadowsky wouldnt push his own taste on you...hes there to find what you want... the only i can think of is Mr J Shuker...he lives so far away from me...[/quote] John East? Lovely chap who knows a very lot indeed. I presume he's still around Oxford.

[quote name='Bilbo' post='985683' date='Oct 12 2010, 01:27 PM']Both of you take a year out to learn to write/read the dots and then write the charts out properly. It may sound like a long way around but when he leaves the band, they won't have this trouble. [/quote] Probably the only long-term solution. However, learning to read music has three sides - Time Sigs, Note Duration & Pitch. In defence of Tab editors like Tux & GuitarPro, they do go some way towards this as (unlike bits of paper & the common ASCII tab), both Tux and GP force you to learn at least the basics of note duration as applied to a given time signature. If you attempt to construct a tab without regard to these, it goes titzup rather rapidly and very obviously (GP turns an entire bar red if it's incomplete), whilst it's very easy to write complete garbage on paper without necessarily realising it. If the developers would give an option to allow easy note placement/manipulation on the stave, they'd be even more useful as then they'd have the Pitch surrounded too. Pete.

I suspect you're stuck with, if not monotonous typing, then at least repetitive mouse clicks & swearing. What have you tried so far? I presume that you're after some kind of WAV >> midi >> tab auto shenanigans. I tend towards TuxGuitar for most things, it's very good, free, but not without certain "issues". Doesn't do the work for you though

[quote name='BurritoBass' post='981114' date='Oct 8 2010, 12:26 AM']Avoid a lot of rockabilly! Wow, those guys can play! I'm at the Johnny Cash level. I find just playing the simple lines from your bass guitar starts you off on working on your intonation[/quote] Not all of it... "Fever" is pretty straight too.

[quote name='BigAlonBass' post='980046' date='Oct 6 2010, 11:27 PM']Yes-I'd be wary of using Plastikote after my experience last week! I'd stripped my old Squier Jazz to the bare wood, then built up coats of Plastikote paint to make it a lovely, glossy white finish. I was so pleased with the result, that I decided to use Plastikote clear lacquer to protect and enhance it. After one light coat of the lacquer, every single square millimetre of the white paint crazed, bubbled and lifted! I spent the better part of a day stripping off the gooey, glue-like goop that was left behind, and ended up going to my local Car Discount store for some rattlecans. No more problems.[/quote] [quote name='silddx' post='980239' date='Oct 7 2010, 09:37 AM']I just read this more carefully. I had exactly the same thing happen and I believe it has something to do with putting on the clear coat too soon. Not sure why it happens because they are both acrylic. I just let it dry and wet sanded it flat, seems to be ok. I won't be using it again though.[/quote] I found this tucked away on the Plasti-Kote website: [quote]Recoat [b]within 4 or after 36 hours[/b] otherwise paint may wrinkle. Touch dry in 30-50 minutes, thoroughly dry in 2-3 hours.[/quote] This suggests that there's some kind of chemical curing that kicks in after 4 hours. Hammerite & Smoothrite have a similar caveat & can become self-stripping if you don't adhere to the instructions. I've had other issues with Plasti-Kote that mean I won't use it ever again. Pete.

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='978588' date='Oct 5 2010, 05:20 PM']Hmmmm. *scratches chin thoughtfully* It may well be. Cheaper basses, cheaper cuts of wood, still a high moisture content... ship 'em to the dry confines of my bass corner and I suppose some wood shrinkage is inevitable (fnarr-fnarr). Had it with a 2009 USA Fender as well though, although the sprout totally subsided in the spring/early summer. The SUB, though, has been absolutely brilliant from day 1. I've had a few Wesley instruments. They come with fret sprout included, no extra charge. And a nut cut by a blind ape.[/quote] I was under the impression that Fenders have built to a price from day 1, so whatever the Corona branch of Travis Perkins has on offer is likely to have an effect. Very rare to hear of long-term QC issues with EBMM though. P.

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='978561' date='Oct 5 2010, 04:54 PM'] The ACGs are both fretless. No sprout there. Not even line-sprout on the Skelf. [/quote] Hence the rapid post deletion after a DOH! moment I do wonder if it's a seasoning issue though. P.

[quote name='Delberthot' post='978329' date='Oct 5 2010, 01:41 PM']So am I the only one never to have had to adjust my truss rod ever? I used to leave my bass in the car overnight in all weathers and didn;t have to touch anything[/quote] Can't match "never", but I haven't adjusted the fretless in over a year & the main fretted hasn't needed anything doing to it since Bernie Goodfellow "laid hands" on it at the London Bash back in the summer. Neither have a 'fag paper' action, but they're not high by any standard, & all adjustments have been to suit my playing style. Mind you, the way that an Aria SB neck is put together it has no business moving about [i][b]Never[/b][/i] had fret sprout on anything I own, don't understand that one at all. Pete.

Can't help with Audacity, as I don't use it, but I doubt that its pitch shifter is overtly complex. If you're a Firefox user, it's possible to save videos from Youtube with the free "Download Helper" plugin, but the legality of doing that is somewhat dubious. You can also play the video online & record the sound part of it using something like Audacity (same legality issues though). iTunes is a good source, but in order to do anything with an iTunes file you really need to convert it into something useful, like a *.wav or an MP3. Assuming you use Windows, Format Factory is superb for this kind of thing, totally free & available here: [url="http://www.formatoz.com/"]http://www.formatoz.com/[/url] Once you've got the file into an accessible format, run it through Audacity & then save it as either an MP3 or just as a WAV, then burn it to CD or stick it on an MP3 player. A WAV is an uncompressed sound file, unlike an MP3 which supports varying degrees of compression, & they tend to be quite large (tens of MB), but they're usually a lot quicker to load in sound editors as the program doesn't have to decompress it. They're quicker to burn to conventional CDs for the same reason. If you've got the full version of Nero installed, have a look at Nero SoundTrax, according to the [url="http://ftp6.nero.com/user_guides/nero9/soundtrax/NeroSoundTrax_Eng.pdf"]manual for version 9[/url] it can do the speed up trick too. Pete.

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='973554' date='Oct 1 2010, 08:55 AM']Hey, if it's good enough for Ikea ...[/quote] They'd insist on calling them Knøbbe or Döng though. "If IKEA made basses"... Sounds like a Phøtøshöp thread

[quote name='Mr. Foxen' post='973443' date='Oct 1 2010, 01:52 AM']I didn't actually know they were still about. Just been having a look, and Carolina appears to be a sort of ash [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraxinus_caroliniana"]wikipedia[/url], linked from [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraxinus"]here.[/url][/quote] Warwick use the mystery "Carolena" wood on some of their basses & it's definitely not Swamp Ash. The one I played a few years back looked suspiciously like Larch or Pitch Pine. Co-incidentally, the State Tree of North Carolina is [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinus_palustris"][i]Pinus palustris[/i][/url] (Longleaf Pine). Swamp Ash usually gets labelled as such, as we expect to see that as a tonewood; but pine needs a bit of er... marketing. P.

[quote name='Jean-Luc Pickguard' post='972669' date='Sep 30 2010, 01:46 PM']Not sure where I heard this, but I recall hearing a tip to use a soldering iron to heatup each fret & it should come out cleaner - or is this BS anyone?[/quote] I've heard similar, but never tried it. Can't remember how I de-fretted my SB-1000... I [i]think[/i] I may have started them by placing a jewellers' screwdriver tip against the ends & tapping them out from the side until there was enough protrusion to get the pliers on. The soldering iron theory goes that [i][b]either[/b][/i] - warming up the fret will expand it ever so slightly, compressing the wood & when it cools the gap will be a smidgen bigger - [i][b]or[/b][/i] - heating the fret releases some of the natural oils in the wood, thus lubricating the passage, Matron - [i][b]even possibly[/b][/i] - if the frets have been glued in (rare but not completely unknown), heat will soften the glue a bit making renoval that bit easier. Probably not BS, but sounds like a lot of nancying about for not much reward. Don't forget that Jaco used a butter knife, Plastic Padding & boat epoxy on his. Pete.

[quote name='Annoying Twit' post='969325' date='Sep 27 2010, 12:13 PM']SB1000 in case. Looks very nice. If I win it for my ridiculous lowball bid, you can bet I'll travel to where-ever it is in Lincolnshire to pick it up biggrin.gif [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=140459010053"]http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=140459010053[/url][/quote] Worth a watch, certainly. [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=250699309378&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT"]The other no-reserve one[/url] topped out at £510.00 plus £30 P & P. Pete.

[quote name='Midnight' post='967952' date='Sep 25 2010, 08:33 PM']hello to all. I have two SB-1000 basses. That is pretty much all I know about them. ... All help is welcome. I am just really stumped. [url="http://s1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa325/Panther73/SB-1000/"]http://s1192.photobucket.com/albums/aa325/Panther73/SB-1000/[/url] Thanks, Jason[/quote] Welcome aboard Jason, still can't help with that lovely "shorty" SB-1000 - other than this link: [url="http://www.prog.rockers.co.uk/sb1000.htm"]http://www.prog.rockers.co.uk/sb1000.htm[/url] - which shows another example. Pete.

[quote name='skankdelvar' post='967199' date='Sep 24 2010, 10:19 PM']Alan Lancaster? Nowhere to be seen. As usual [/quote] Cliff Williams AWOL too.

Padauk Red [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ARIA-PRO-II-CUSTOM-BODY-BASS-GUITAR-WOODEN-BODY-/250695458736?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item3a5e9d1fb0"]SB-600[/url] with a "wooden body"! Whatever next? Walnut [url="http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Aria-Pro11-SB-1000-bass-guitar-genuine-vintage-example-/250699309378?pt=UK_Musical_Instruments_Guitars_CV&hash=item3a5ed7e142"]SB-1000[/url] No reserve & 5 days to run, watching with interest. Sellers spiel is interesting. Do Aria do valuations now?

If it's stainless all the way down, try this... Hoy round to Robert Dyas & find a bottle of this stuff: Kilrock-K (Check your local late-night corner shop too) Find a large enough jar or tupperware-style container & add 1/3 of the bottle plus enough hot (boiling) water to cover the string. Leave it to steep for a day or so, then rinse it out in meths (to displace any water that's got in) & allow to dry. Remarkably effective stuff at getting shot of rust marks, & absolutely fan-bloody-tastic for descaling kettles. Nothing else comes close. Pete.

If it's cloth-backed, you should get away with PVA. Repair or re-cover? Edit: Great minds etc. (but mine's bigger 'n yours) :snob:

Oooohhhh. I'm liking that lots. No DB... How about a fretless with the treble wound off? Pete.

30 secs (if that) for Tomas, more than three times that for Meshell. Neither are really my style tbh. I go for groove every time (with a couple of exceptions), but it's nice when an otherwise "straight" player bowls you a Doosra. Pete.

[quote name='MuseMatt' post='956051' date='Sep 14 2010, 02:38 PM']... my target at the moment being able to play Stockholm Syndrome by Muse (durr...) without a pick. Is it just me who finds that song ridiculously fast to play or are there more of you who think that the song is quite fast to play?[/quote] No. Not [i]just[/i] you. That's slightly north of the border for my right hand too... I'd be reaching for the pick. If you have some slowdowning type software, you can adjust the tempo to the point where you [i]can[/i] play it, & when you've got that down, speed it up incrementally until it's full speed... and then speed it up some more to give yourself some headroom. Rather like using a metronome, but there's an obvious goal. P.

[quote name='EssentialTension' post='952713' date='Sep 11 2010, 01:55 PM']Hmmm ... I have a family commitment that day ... now how can I get out of it?[/quote] [quote name='Truckstop' post='952715' date='Sep 11 2010, 01:56 PM']Fake your death.[/quote] [quote name='EssentialTension' post='952717' date='Sep 11 2010, 02:01 PM']That's no good,my son would take all my gear ... if he could get his hands on it before his mother sold it all.[/quote] Fake [i]their[/i] deaths then. Hope to make this one... Public Transport links seem OK (Waterloo >> Addlestone CDR £9.70, change at Feltham, omnibus from Addlestone station). Gear? The usual. The SB-1000 & SB-900, Superfly & either just the Epifani UL-110 and (If I can blag a lift with the space from Forest Hill/Catford) the Flite 15. Pete.